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Incarceration Nation

Starve the Beast

By Tim Young

Plantation toil, penitentiary moil,

Where slavery ends

The Prison Industrial Complex begins

Check your history

1863 to the 21st century

Wanton misery, no mystery,

Statistics quite frightening

Fraught with disparity...

African Americans constitute 12 percent of the nation,

50 percent of the prison population.

That’s mass incarceration

Modern day enslavement

Casting a wide net

Landing a big catch:

The poor, the black, the innocent..

Forever strange fruit

Courtrooms abound with black youth

Legal lynching ensues

The gavel is a noose

Freedom dismissed

American justice amiss

School to prison pipeline

Lucrative slave ship...

Dred Scott was the genesis

The aftermath stupendous

Millions of lost souls

Prison, probation, parole

Civil liberties on hold

Democracy untold

A dream deferred

Martin’s nightmare has emerged...

A better world is possible

Prison abolition is logical

Society holds the key

Time to manifest some destiny

Organize, mobilize,

Act in solidarity

Accomplish the feat

Starve the belly of the beast.


Write to:

Tim Young #F23374

4 EY-23

San Quentin State Prison

San Quentin, CA 94974